


Reprise

by jiokra



Series: Malec 15 Kisses [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Communication, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-31 08:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12128835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiokra/pseuds/jiokra
Summary: Once they remembered the existence of portals, a few blocks separated them from The Hunter's Moon.





	Reprise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NRGburst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NRGburst/gifts).



Magnus couldn’t recall a moment he’d ever been so grateful for a second chance.

There was the relevant comparison: pleading Camille to forgive him of severing ties with her after her affair with the mundane in St. Petersburg. Scouring the world and upturning friendships for the slightest intelligence on her whereabouts. Lottery tickets he’d bought, forgotten, and rediscovered well past their expiry date only to learn that they had won the jackpot. The first forty minutes of the craft beer tasting from local breweries down the block from the loft a year ago. That time before automatic bill pay existed and he forgot to pay the rent on his apartment in Paris. Missing out on the reunion tour for The Police.

But he hadn’t fully experienced what it felt like to crave that second chance until Alec.

He supposed it was that feeling, and the need for tangible proof that this feeling reflected reality, that made him never want to break physical contact with Alec. After walking a few paces, not even before they existed the alleyway, his hand fell from rubbing Alec’s shoulder to his waist, wrist caught by his hip. Walking otherwise was too awkward, and physics had done its duty. Coyly, he tested the waters and tucked his hand into the back pocket of Alec’s blue jeans.

Magnus expected to be brushed off. It was Alec’s job to set the pace; Magnus had forfeited that right. And besides, their moonlit promenade might have crossed paths with only empty streets, but that didn’t preclude the possibility that someone might see, and this degree of transparency was still a transition for Alec. But Alec kept on their stroll, hazel eyes watching the sights ahead of him. The slight curve of his mouth and glassy-eyed look gave Magnus the impression that Alec was as ensnared by it all as him.

That small smile sharpened.

Charmed, Magnus said, though trepidation mellowed the words, “Whatever’s on your mind?”

Alec peered at him out the corner of his eye. “We’ve walked for almost a block,” he said, deadpan and at odds with his slight smirk. Magnus missed Alec’s ability to exude that perpetual sense of scathing apathy at matters concerning virtually everything. A kindred sentiment and yet so distinctly and unabashedly Alec. “A whole block, and I think this is the longest we’ve gone without you mentioning portals.”

Magnus slowed to a halt, growing all too aware of the slight dizziness from the cocktails, the heat of Alec’s ass beneath his hand, the fatigue of battle and overtaxing his magic. “Huh.”

Boots scuffed the sidewalk, that stealthy Shadowhunter agility gone, and Alec swung around, a keen eye trained on him. With just a single look and steady gait, he lassoed an invisible thread around him. Alec encroached upon him, tugging on that invisible thread, and Magnus stumbled forward at his mercy, panicked and at ease all at once. Over a hundred years passed since anyone invoked that emotion out of Magnus, and it petrified him.

Alec paused a breath before him, so close Magnus could make out the amber flecks in his irises. Heart stammering, Magnus wanted to retreat, just a simple, little step back, but the implications in such a maneuver conveyed a valley of hidden meanings Magnus didn’t mean.

Alec’s gaze danced from eye-to-eye before lowering; his lip quirked, his tongue traced along the smooth curve. Magnus couldn’t recall when he started watching it.

The glamor on his warlock mark weakened, and without thinking he took a large step back, squeezing his eyes shut. “Sorry for all the... walking,” said Magnus.

The entire front of his body vibrated from Alec’s residual heat, tingling once the night air nipped him. Then Alec stepped into him, hands settling over his face—neck, ears, cheeks. Gooseflesh prickled him as Alec’s heat washed over him

The glamor slipped away, and it so _freeing_ and yet so horrific. All he could think was how Alec had said his eyes were beautiful, that he was beautiful—and he’d thrown that away. There was nowhere he’d rather be but here, and it scared him most of all because Alec wanted this too, enough to seek him out again despite all he had said and done.

“Hey,” whispered Alec. A thumb traced over his cheekbone. “Magnus?”

 _Better face the music._ He looked at him, cat’s eyes and everything within him bared out into the open. His regrets. Fears. Need. He swallowed down a bitter ache. “I’m sorry, Alexander.”

Alec leaned into him till their foreheads touched, eyes closed. “For what?”

“You know, for—” Magnus waved at the proverbial slight that surrounded them.

“No, I should be apologizing,” said Alec, and he shook his head. They were so close their noses bumped together. “I should have told you about the Soul Sword—”

“ _I_ should have communicated better.”

“And you’d never have to if I didn’t—”

Magnus swallowed and clutched the back of Alec’s jacket, memories of the past days overwhelming him with the need for concrete proof of them standing there together. That cyclical argument of endless apologies had grown tedious the first time around, but he couldn’t deny the weight it lifted off him, or the brightness it brought to Alec’s downcast face.

“It’s all in the past,” said Alec. Magnus tensed, and he added, “I forgive you.”

Magnus had to touch him, to further feel this moment and its tangibility. He slid his hand beneath the jacket and laid a palm flat on the thin fabric over his lower back. It felt wrong to touch him, forbidden. He closed his eyes, grimacing. “I don’t forgive me.”

He hadn’t thought it, but once he said it, gears shifted into place, and everything felt so right.

Alec grumbled, hands slipping down to clutch the lapels of his jacket. He pulled Magnus into him and smothered his mouth with a kiss of bruising strength.

It wasn’t like anything in the alley behind the Hunter’s Moon. That had been a tender test of the waters, a confirmation of what they’d said and left unsaid. But he wasn’t hunting for symbolism now, and he doubted Alec was either. Alec kissed his mouth open and gripped his lapels so hard that knuckles dug into his chest and the sleeves of his coat pinched him. When their tongues met Magnus had half a mind to remember they were making out in public, certainly a first and something he hadn’t anticipated Alec would be keen to do. The hand lonely at his side twitched to conjure a portal.

Alec tore away for a quick breath before peppering his chin and jaw with feather light kisses. He stepped away, resting his forehead on Magnus’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean—” Alec cleared his throat. “It’s not that I wanted to stop—stop—”

Magnus attempted to parse meaning into those fragments. “Stop talking?”

“Yes. Exactly. I just— I miss you. And I needed to—to...”

“Make out in a street that every now and then smells like sewage?”

“Yes.”

“I know the feeling.”

Magnus craned his head for a clear view of prospective locations to place a portal. It took more concentration than usual to conjure a portal with only one hand and without his magic at optimal levels, but with a flick of his wrist, an ornate, indigo maelstrom brewed in the middle of the vacant street. Alec shifted, the hold on his coat loosening.

“Took you long enough,” said Alec, dryly.

Magnus slipped a hand around his waist and beckoned him to the portal. “Come on, lover boy. Steak and vodka, on the house.”


End file.
